Mental illness in TOS

[Mres_was_framed!]

Not all humans are from Earth in TOS. Dr. Miranda Jones, for instance, said in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" that she had never been to Earth.

I suggest that Miranda is a Betazoid. For one thing it explains her telepathy without confirming that, in Star Trek, humans can do that. Deanna does get called "human," in a couple TNG episodes. In the Star Trek video games there is a Betazoid medic who had to study on Vulcan. It adds a whole new level of depth to the episode.

in order for the audience to even slightly believe that Scotty may have committed the crimes subconsciously

If Star Trek is treated as a continuous universe with episodes that could all happen in some order, then there is no way I could accept Scotty would do that.

just a way to get in some shore leave with a half hearted medical excuse

While it does sound like McCoy is suggesting Scotty has some real trauma, I think they must have had some further reason to attend that location, as I don't see taking an actual injured person with possible severe head trauma and also perhaps personality changes to that kind of establishment, or any kind of establishment, soon after, would be very wise.

But the only unanswered question is who was the woman and how did she cause the accident?

In stardate order the prior episode is "The Changeling." Due to Uhura's singing, Nomad tries read her brain which causes Scotty to react and Scotty intervenes and is "killed" but revived by Nomad. He does go flying across the room and may have hit his head.

The woman in question could be Uhura.

Kirk and McCoy are extra afraid for Scotty because they don't really know what Nomad did to him, and Scotty did go some time without fresh oxygen to the brain.

So they have reason to worry that Scotty has personality changes or other effects that they cannot quite predict. Kirk might keep calling it "a blow to the head" because saying "'killed' and revived" every time is almost to weired to accept in the first place.

It all fits together nicely

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

McCoy says, "Don't forget, the explosion that threw Scotty against a bulkhead was caused by a woman."

I dunno, that sounds more like he's talking about a woman making a clumsy engineering error at worst, and trying to fix/accomplish something that the ship's circuits couldn't handle at best. I don't know if he would blame Uhura (seriously, that is - "You just had to open your mouth right then, lassie.") for what Nomad did, though I suppose he might forgive a machine (that can't help what it's been programmed/corrupted to do) over a person.

 

[Korusan]

Here's the thing: if you have to look for "wiggle room" and interpretation in order to make the dialog less crummy, then you're trying too hard. It's a 60's TV show written primarily by men who overruled a lot of what the lone woman on the writing staff wanted to accomplish.

There are seldom hidden meanings and subtext to dialog like this. It is just an unfortunate byproduct of the era.

The lines are meant to be taken at face value in order for the audience to even slightly believe that Scotty may have committed the crimes subconsciously. That's really it. Scott's accident was caused by a woman. This made Scotty resent women for a short time. The blow on the head was suspected of making him act out violently. I never, in the 50 years I've been watching Star Trek, ever felt there was anything other than what they said. Don't excuse the 60's to make it fit in the present day. Accept it.

It's not even that hard to believe. There are guys out there right now who wind up with a weird twisted resentment towards women for baffling reasons, some of whom get past it thankfully.

 

[Poltargyst]

I do not for one moment believe Scotty would blame Uhura for what Nomad did.

 

[Shawnster]

I suggest that Miranda is a Betazoid. For one thing it explains her telepathy without confirming that, in Star Trek, humans can do that. Deanna does get called "human," in a couple TNG episodes. In the Star Trek video games there is a Betazoid medic who had to study on Vulcan. It adds a whole new level of depth to the episode

Oh I like this suggestion. I like it alot.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I do not for one moment believe Scotty would blame Uhura for what Nomad did.

I mean he fully expected to absorb whatever was coming her way, and probably die. It's not like Uhura dragged him in front of her as a human shield.

 

[Qonundrum]

Ron Tracey, from "The Omega Glory", is another - the latest example (circa 1968) of "the evil captain of the week" trope went nuts over the idea of living several hundred years, wanting that secret (in a way better than ST INS had) and then broke the prime directive like how you don't break all the merchandise in a mirror showroom without expecting to (a) pay for the damages, and (b) multiply the number of destroyed mirrors - even the teensy ones - by 7 (and then add to that the value of 14 by all the double-sided mirrors in the back corner of the sales floor (and/or warehouse behind) where nobody under 18 is allowed ruined) and that's how many years of bad luck you'll have. Unless of course, (c) the mirror peddler was selling a room of junk but for mirrors that's fairly unlikely.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Man, the Omega Glory had hints of greatness in it, if not for the 'yang-comm' crap, the U.S. flag, and the actual Declaration of Independence at the end of it. Talk about a writer beating you over the head with a 'captain obvious' non-allegory!

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

Man, the Omega Glory had hints of greatness in it, if not for the 'yang-comm' crap, the U.S. flag, and the actual Declaration of Independence at the end of it. Talk about a writer beating you over the head with a 'captain obvious' non-allegory!

Actually it's the US Constitution that is one of the Yangs' holy objects, and Kirk quotes that document's preamble.

 

[Jedi Marso]

Actually it's the US Constitution that is one of the Yangs' holy objects, and Kirk quotes that document's preamble.

Fair enough. Same issue, though, regardless of which document it is.

 

[Pauln6]

What's the episode where Scotty is suffering from unreasoning bigotry towards women?

I recall that Kirk's idea of therapy is to stop off at a sex planet and hire a hooker as a cure?

Very silly but Scotty would KILL anyone who harmed his engines. I need to go back and tweak the dialogue for this one. I'm thinking Yeoman Rand was reassigned to engineering and spilled coffee on the console or Yeoman Ross, since Ex Machina suggested that she and Chief Ross from TMP were the same person. Maybe Rand is the better choice since she also blew up the transporter in TMP.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

McCoy says, "Don't forget, the explosion that threw Scotty against a bulkhead was caused by a woman."

I understood that McCoy was being sarcastic, in the way a person would be if someone repeats something over and over again with little evidence.

Scotty wakes up, remembers trying to defend Uhura, and unuusally for him, claims that it is Uhura's fault. Since Kirk and McCoy have no idea that Nomad actually did, they worry, but do not really believe, that Scotty has been brought back with personality issues. So they set out to find out to their best ability what, if anything, is wrong with him.

I really like that a lot better than the idea that Scotty is acting badly enough that Kirk and McCoy doubt him due to just some random accident that causes Scotty to have a somewhat ridiculous bias and resentment. Why would his feelings be towards women? Why not any other characteristic of the person who caused the accident?

 

[SLWalker]

I understood that McCoy was being sarcastic, in the way a person would be if someone repeats something over and over again with little evidence.

Scotty wakes up, remembers trying to defend Uhura, and unuusally for him, claims that it is Uhura's fault. Since Kirk and McCoy have no idea that Nomad actually did, they worry, but do not really believe, that Scotty has been brought back with personality issues. So they set out to find out to their best ability what, if anything, is wrong with him.

I really like that a lot better than the idea that Scotty is acting badly enough that Kirk and McCoy doubt him due to just some random accident that causes Scotty to have a somewhat ridiculous bias and resentment. Why would his feelings be towards women? Why not any other characteristic of the person who caused the accident?

I mean, there's also just giving McCoy too much credit. We never once see anything like evidence that Scotty has an issue with women from the man himself. In fact, he's chivalrous to an actual fault consistently.

We only have McCoy's (wildly speculative and debatable) 'diagnosis' to go on, and it's not like he's never been wrong or never leapt to some extreme conclusions before. We have no idea what he might have seen or assumed to make that (really medically ridiculous) diagnosis, too.

Maybe -- bear with me here -- he was wrong this time and used the opportunity to send a man planetside who had been hurt and who we know for a fact actually would just rather stay on the ship reading, because not even a whole season later Scotty outright says as much. And if it happens to mean McCoy and Jim get to go hang around strippers as chaperones, then it's a win-win situation.

At least until their chief engineer gets used as a murder puppet and threatened with execution, anyway. Which I imagine was a lot more traumatizing than even a bad concussion.

Like, all the speculation in the universe doesn't make for evidence. There's no on-screen evidence that Scotty, who is an actual dumbass goofball romantically speaking, resents anyone for anything. There's just McCoy saying it. We don't even know why McCoy is saying it; he doesn't point to any single thing he's basing that on. And if there were actually anything behind it, prescribing strippers would not be a sensible medical answer. I'd think that taking the man off-duty and mandating therapy would be much, much more acceptable.

So, for a Watsonian possible answer (at least as I write it): McCoy observed Scotty -- Mister Dumbass Romantic -- being snappish and short-tempered with Christine or some other woman, because he got thrown into a bulkhead and concussed and is probably hurting and therefore not in the mood for anything but being left alone, and because the man is usually chivalrous to a fault, McCoy leaps to some conclusions and then confirmation bias just reinforces them once or twice. And then he prescribes strippers and shore leave because 1.) getting his colleague laid can't hurt anything and 2.) getting his workaholic colleague to even go planetside has to be made an order. And if they get to go with and enjoy themselves--

For a Doylist answer: It was the 60s. It was a plot device. No one actually believes (or would believe) Montgomery Scott is or is capable of being a serial killer of women, so they tried to introduce some pseudoscience to make it almost barely plausible (and failed, tbh), and now in 2023, we're still scratching our collective heads over it. Just like Spock, in the same episode, claiming women are more easily terrorized, which is arguably way more openly misogynistic than anything Scotty does from the beginning to the end.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

They could have used the excuse of a Scotty getting over an unseen bad breakup, or being unlucky in love the past few months, trying to break his "unlucky streak".

It's just McCoy's excuse to leave sickbay (babysitting a patient), one he might be looking for, as the only thing he's got going that night is boring paperwork.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

No one actually believes (or would believe) Montgomery Scott is or is capable of being a serial killer of women, so they tried to introduce some pseudoscience to make it almost barely plausible

Honestly, not only do you make some strong points, I think that is the biggest problem with this episode: far and away from any material that could seem dated from a show made in the '60's, there is the basic fact that the audience just is not going accept Scotty could be that kind of murderer.

Simply going to the planet and having Scotty accused, with Kirk feeling forced to let the planet's legal system do its job would have been tension for a story, and not trying to make us wonder if Scotty would be a murder.

That being said, my tie-in to "The Changeling" at least ups the stakes by creating a convincing reason why Kirk and McCoy would doubt Scotty, but the most of the audience never would doubt Scotty.

There's just McCoy saying it. We don't even know why McCoy is saying it; he doesn't point to any single thing he's basing that on.

Even some scenes of Scotty yelling at people could have helped convince us that McCoy has a reason to feel this way, but the episode does not make it clear. Usually TOS does a great job of showing only what is needed for the story, but a little more of the back story could really have helped.

None of this is meant to be a put-down to what I do feel is a great episode, not to mention the one that get mentioned in many math textbooks due to its use of calculations to solve a major crisis in the story, when the computer is asked to calculate the value of pi.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

They could have cut out the whole "hates women" thing and shown Scotty as having an injury or taking a medication that could have violent side effects. The planet's justice system doesn't make the distinctions of whether you were lucid or not.

Maybe instead of going off with a pretty girl, his hot temper, displayed when a Klingon insulted the Enterprise, comes out in full force when he loses at a game to one of the alien people, or gets into a fight with the guy. Kirk breaks it up, and they go their separate ways, only for Scotty to later stumble on his opponent's body after being incapacitated (y'know, the old trope of "framed by being found next to a dead body unconscious")

 

[Poltargyst]

Writers often use characters' dialog to tell us what they want us to know. That doesn't mean that what the characters say is always true, but when it's not true, the writer shows us that. There is nothing in the episode to indicate that McCoy is wrong, so I take his statement at face value: Scotty was injured in an accident caused by a woman, so now he has an issue with women. Does it make sense? Maybe not, but that's what we're supposed to believe for this episode.

I will say that I do not believe that the Nomad situation was the accident we are talking about here, and I say again that not in a million years do I believe Scotty would blame Uhura for that. Why would Scotty blame Uhura for Nomad attacking her? Why would he blame the victim? That does not make sense to me.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Maybe not, but that's what we're supposed to believe for this episode.

It's hard to believe. It's easier to believe that Kirk and McCoy doubt him that to accept that we, the audience, are supposed to doubt him.

I will say that I do not believe that the Nomad situation was the accident we are talking about here, and I say again that not in a million years do I believe Scotty would blame Uhura for that. Why would Scotty blame Uhura for Nomad attacking her? Why would he blame the victim? That does not make sense to me.

I'm not saying Scotty necessarily blames Uhura, outside of perhaps being grumpy that he had to save her; I'm saying Kirk and McCoy are doubting Scotty because they don't know what Nomad did, and if Scotty is acting different in any way (that they perceive), then they are unsure if he could have committed the murder.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

You mean that McCoy wonders if that deadly zap fried something the doctor didn't detect in his medical tests, something that made a "not criminally responsible by Federation standards" Scotty kill regardless of how he felt about women.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

You mean that McCoy wonders if that deadly zap fried something the doctor didn't detect in his medical tests, something that made a "not criminally responsible by Federation standards" Scotty kill regardless of how he felt about women.

Right, I'm saying in my scenario McCoy thought that was possible. But I'm also saying that McCoy now also considers the idea that Scotty might actually have such a resentment, even though that is totally uncharacteristic for Scotty otherwise.

I could accept their apparent worry about Scotty as stated if each episode were a separate universe so that in that context it would be possible for Scotty to be convicted despite appearing in other episodes, but that's not how I view Star Trek.